Sorry for the list being a day late, Midtown didn’t update their Viz info right away and I wanted to ensure that I had the right titles there. (And no, still no Kodansha at Midtown.)

It’s a first week of the month, always the biggest. What have we got? Well, we’ve got the 2nd Card Captor Sakura omnibus from Dark Horse, finally staggering in after the usual eight or nine publishing delays. If it’s anything like Volume 1 was, it will be worth the wait – the series is fantastic, and DH’s reprint was flawless and worth a buy.

Presspop has an interesting release: the 1934 robot manga Tank Tankuro, a pioneering entry in almost everything. It’s an expensive hardcover with a slipcase, but with that sort of pedigree I imagine you want to pimp it a bit.

Vertical is cruising along in their release of Black Jack, with Volume 15 getting released next week. It originally ran in Weekly Shonen Champion, back when the magazine was not a haven for the lowest that manga has to offer. Of course, Black Jack is not afraid to get into some deep waters itself…

As always, the bulk of the week of Viz. We have a huge PILE of stuff. Most important to me is the 23rd volume of Gintama, which is the last currently scheduled in the States. It’s a low seller, and unlike other Viz low sellers, it’s shown no signs of ending in Japan anytime soon. So Viz is calling this the ‘Final Volume!’. Which it isn’t. Perhaps JManga might try continuing it there? Heh… In any case, Gintama, you were fantastically underrated, and I shall miss you.

There is, of course, a lot of new Jump manga that isn’t ending. Yu-Gi-Oh GX. Tegami Bachi. Slam Dunk. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. Bakuman. And Bleach, getting another 3-in-1 omnibus. Speaking of those, Fullmetal Alchemist gets another one as well, despite being the redheaded stepchild of this pack, being a Shonen Gangan title.

The shoujo end of the spectrum holds even more gems. New Ai Ore!, for Mayu Shinjo fans and apparently no one else. Haruka Beyond the Stream of Time 13, for readers who have difficulty getting to sleep at night. New Kaze Hikaru, for whose who wondered if Viz was trying to quietly bury it behind the forge. And new Otomen, where I’ll bet you two to one we’ll have no idea what Ryo is thinking.

In non-sarcastic manga out this week, we have new volumes of Kamisama Kiss, Natsume’s Book of Friends (which should be catching up with Japan soon at this rate…), Sakura Hime, the Story of Saiunkoku, and the penultimate volume of Seiho Boys’ High School.

And, in non-manga news, Archie Comics releases its big 400-page Best Of Archie Comics digest. I raise an eyebrow, as I’ve seen Archie’s idea of best-ofs before, but will let you know how it is.

Busy week! What are you getting?

Right, Midtown is really starting to irritate me. I don’t know where their distributor has wandered off to, but the Kodansha titles are just passing them by. With that in mind…

Stuff that’s come out from Kodansha but hasn’t hit Midtown in the last 2 months: Well, we have (deep breath) Air Gear 18 (back to single volumes), The Wallflower 25 (ditto), Negima Neo 7 (the final volume, and thank God for that), and Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei 9. Reviews of Zetsubou and Wallflower are already on my site. That’s June.

From July, we have out already the 14th volume of Fairy Tail, the 3rd of the blogger favorite Arisa, the final volume of Shugo Chara proper (the last volume is a collection of the sequel, Shugo Chara Encore), and a new Ninja Girls, which is… not a blogger favorite. Those came out today.

Next week, from Diamond but not Midtown, we have the 30th volume of Mahou Sensei Negima!. It’s in the middle of a kickass arc that doesn’t let up. And while I can’t confirm this (as I didn’t order it), we may see the new Deltora Quest as well. Hey, Midtown! Fix this!

Rant over, so what *is* Midtown getting in? Well, there’s the 6th volume of Gurren Lagann, from Dengeki Daioh. There’s also a large stack of stuff from Digital Manga Publishing, who apparently finished a bunch of Taiyo Tosho stuff at once. All one-volume sets, with such suggestive titles as I Give To You, This Night’s Everything, and Entangled Circumstances. All these come from their two yaoi magazines, Hertz and Craft.

(Side note to DMP: If you license one more yaoi manga where a seme has one hand cupping the chin of his lover while the uke is staring back at him with this sort of tortured ‘do what you will, you callous ruffian of my heart’ look, I shall be very cross with you indeed.)

And that’s it. What appeals to you this week?

After the first two weeks of July were very busy, this third week, as is traditional with comic shops, is fairly quiet. (Quick note: Midtown, where I get my list from, is very behind in getting Kodansha Comics. My shop (not Midtown) lists Fairy Tail 14 as coming in next week, and I suspect that means Arisa 3, Ninja Girls 6 and Shugo Chara 11 might also show up via Diamond. But we won’t know till Monday.)

First off, Bandai has a new one-volume Code Geass spinoff, Tales of An Alternate Shogunate. It’s essentially Code Geass in 1853, assuming that 1853 had giant mecha. It ran in one of Kadokawa’s media magazines, Kerokero Ace, but does not feature anyone from Sgt. Frog. I think.

Udon’s line of child-friendly manga never really got as much attention as it probably deserved. They licensed several titles from Japanese publisher Poplar, which specializes in the ‘kodomo’ genre, aka manga for children ages 3-6. The longest title Udon picked up was the 5-volume magical girl manga The Big Adventures of Majoko, and its final volume hits shelves next week.

Vertical has Volume 8 of its quietly fantastic space manga Twin Spica. Which I believe is actually the 2nd half of 8 and all of 9 in Japan, as Vertical is starting to release these in longer chunks. Very much worth your money in any case.

And Viz has its prestige items. La Quinta Camera is the latest in Viz’s quest to license everything by Natsume Ono they possibly can (that is not either yaoi or owned by Kodansha). This ran, like Not Simple did, in Penguin Shobo’s magazine Comic SEED!, and from the reviews I’ve read I expect I will enjoy it quite a bit.

The 6th volume of Ooku is also coming out. This runs in the Japanese magazine Melody, which tends to straddle the line between shoujo and josei so much that folks get confused. A good rule of thumb is to see which imprint the collected editions come out under. Gatcha Gacha, for example, ran in Melody and was put out under the Hana to Yume imprint. Hence, shoujo. Ooku, on the other hand, comes out in the much sleeker and more adult Jets imprint. This one’s josei. Enjoyable no matter where it slots, however.

Lastly, there’s the 10th VIZBIG Edition of samurai thriller Vagabond, which I believe is the last until Japan gets a few more volumes out, as I think the collections have almost caught up with the individual volumes.

Anything appealing to you yet?